Marcos' wish: No more typhoons, food packs to rot

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday said he wished that food packs being given to calamity victims “to rot,” and that no typhoons would strike the country, which has been repeatedly pummeling Filipinos, especially in the provinces.

“Ang sinasabi ko, sana nga hindi na magkabagyo, hindi na magkasakuna. Mabulok na lang sana ang mga food pack natin,” he said during his visit to the Mechanized Production System (MPS) of the Visayas Disaster Resource Center—a state-of-the-art upgrade of automatic vacuum packaging lines to its disaster response infrastructure—in the province of Cebu.

The MPS was funded with P117 million through the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (NDRRM) Fund and completed in July 2025. It aims to enhance disaster preparedness and improve response mechanisms throughout the Visayas region.

The MPS can produce 30,000 food packs per day, compared with the previous manual output of 5,000 to 8,000 packs.

To date, the MPS has roughly 12 million stored food packs ready to be released when calamities hit Cebu.

The President said the government is currently rolling out MPS facilities throughout the country.

Meanwhile, Marcos also led the launch of the Pag-Abot Processing Center in Cebu, reaffirming the government’s commitment to assist people living on the streets by providing health services, livelihood assistance, psychosocial support, food, clothing, temporary housing, and other interventions to improve their lives.

In Cebu, more than 600 homeless individuals have been recorded by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), which is implementing the Pag-Abot Program to help families and individuals in street situations.

The program provides health services, food, clothing, psychosocial and livelihood support, temporary housing, and family reintegration to help beneficiaries move toward stable and dignified lives.

The DSWD, in coordination with the Department of the Interior and Local Government and local government units, is reaching out to families in street situations to ensure their inclusion in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and other social protection initiatives under the Pag-Abot Program, which was launched in 2023 and later institutionalized in 2024.

While being briefed by DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian, President Marcos toured the Pag-Abot Processing Center, visiting the clinic; the processing area for beneficiary assessment, profiling, and biometrics; the clothing distribution, storage, and laundry area; the kitchen and dining hall; the administrative office; the senior citizens’ room; the isolation room; and the prayer and activity areas.

The President also inspected the second-floor facilities, including the child-minding and multi-purpose areas, the lactation room, the house parents’ room, the male, female, and family sleeping quarters, and the communal bathrooms.